


Mise en Place

by TheLCM



Series: In the Garden of the Hurricane's Eye [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types, Hannibal Lecter Tetralogy - Thomas Harris
Genre: (kind of?), Blow Jobs, Bottom Hannibal, Cannibalism, Canon Compliant, Dark, Drugs, Dubious Consent, Fingering, First Time, Fix-It, Hannibal "I slip empathogenic drugs to the empath" Lecter, M/M, Masturbation, Mind Games, Post-Series, Power Dynamics, Violence, Will Tops, Will Trips Balls, Will is Not a Teacup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-01-23
Packaged: 2018-01-09 18:06:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1149160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLCM/pseuds/TheLCM
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the second time in his life, Will catches Hannibal Lecter. Things do not go according to plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mise en Place

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amare/gifts).



> Couple notes going in! Please mind the warnings: drugs and dubcon here, as well as show-levels of cannibal creepiness. If you haven’t read Hannibal by Thomas Harris, it’s worth noting that Margot Verger is Mason’s younger sister, whom he both torments and molests. In Hannibal, she wants to have a baby with her girlfriend Judy, but needs her brother’s sperm in order to do so. 
> 
> Sequel to [En Brochette](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1092718).
> 
> Final note: this would have been in no way possible without the stellar edits of greenwingsreading and Spocktacular. Amazing, guys. Also, I always appreciate extra eyes on work, so if you'd be interested in Beta-ing for part 3, please drop a comment!

1.

This is Will Graham’s life. 

He wakes up every morning just before dawn. He drives a bottle green Mustang an hour to the little town of Chokoloski, Florida, where he sits on the docks for eight hours straight. Sometimes, he fixes boat motors. Mainly, people leave him alone. 

A group of middle schoolers take a shine to him. They follow him around, whispering for weeks, before one gets up the nerve to approach. The kid stands at arm’s length and has to try three times before managing to speak. 

“Can I- can I-,” the boy licks his lips, eyes darting. He’s terrified. All Will can feel is exhaustion. He’s a runt, this kid, in bad clothes and a home-done haircut. The easy target, just moved maybe. The first to be thrown under the bus. 

“Your friends dare you to talk to me?” 

The boy swallows, his spine straightens. It’s a clear ‘yes,’ but the kid’s not about to narc. Something tugs at Will’s heart. He knows whatever the children have planned for him will be unpleasant. He's had worse. “So ask.”

“W-what?”

“They sent you to ask me a question. Ask.”

He pulls a long splinter out of the dock, and throws it into the bay. The boy jumps at the ‘plop,’ but musters his courage. “Um. I, it’s ah, can I tell you a joke?”

That wasn’t what Will expected. “Sure.”

“Ah, um,” the boy turns red. Will gets a nasty sensation in the pit of his stomach. “What… what’s the, ah, definition of trust?”

Will blinks. Where his life’s concerned, there are too many punch lines. He’s ill-equipped to pick any of them. Before he can even begin to narrow his options, the kid is speaking again, a thousand miles a minute, “Twocannibalsgivingeachotherblowjobs.”

The boy runs away before Will can untangle the sentence. When he does, he laughs himself sick. 

2\. 

On weekends, Will drives up to Tampa for self-defense classes with a retired Special Forces instructor named Anthony Bright. Bright served five tours in Afghanistan, not including the missions he’s forbidden to speak of. He’s missing a leg, and the use of one eye, and can take a person apart more efficiently than anyone Will’s ever met. They don’t bond, or talk much, but four months after Will starts attending classes, he helps Bright with a bad carburetor and Bright takes him out for a beer. 

The evening goes well, if quietly, and Will’s just starting to get comfortable when somewhere around the bottom of the third pint, Bright’s eyes go dark, and his lips pull back. He mutters in a voice so low Will almost doesn’t hear, “Fuck, I miss it,” and Will knows there’s nothing but destruction for him here. 

He drives home alone, in the dark, to his dogs. 

3\. 

For a short time, there is a woman. Her name is Merideth and she works at a bakery in town. Occasionally, after her shifts, she comes down to the docks and sits with Will. She brings him scones, or donuts, and jokes that he needs to put meat on his bones. For a while, he tries joking back.  


But the sweets turn to sawdust on his tongue, and too often the M of her name trips into Molly, who left him when he needed her most. 

One night, he dreams Merideth brings him cake on a ceramic platter. He smashes it over her skull. With a shattered piece, he stabs just under her eye, again and again, saying ‘see, see, see’ as the blood splatters onto his face. 

He doesn’t speak to her, after that. 

4\. 

Will receives a lot of letters after the video. Some condemnations, some praise, some sympathetic. He’s trashed all except for one, which sits on his mantle in an open envelope. It’s from a woman named Margot Verger. This is what it says,

_“Dear Mr. Graham,_

_My name is Margot Verger, and I am the sister of the man who recently put you through a great deal of trouble. I know you don’t know me, nor I you, and won’t presume to guess how you must be feeling. As one of the many victims of my brother’s cruelties, however, I would like to offer any assistance I can. Never hesitate to call, and if you ever find yourself in Maine, know that my wife’s and my home is always open to you._

_Regards,_

_—Margot Verger”_

An address and telephone number follow. It has been six months since the letter arrived. He picks up the phone. The next day, he boards a flight for Rockland, Maine. 

5.

Margot Verger is not what Will expected. She is a large woman, larger than him by a head, several inches, and at least 50 pounds. Her blonde hair is streaked with white and grown long, to soften the effect of the corded muscles jutting harshly from her neck. She offers her hand, and they shake with a firmness Will hasn’t experienced since the most bullish days of Jack Crawford. 

They stand on her porch, in the middle of the unspoilt Maine wilderness, until a small Filipino woman emerges from the house with a baby in her arms. “My wife,” Margot says, by way of explanation. “Judy. Judy, this is Will Graham.”

Judy beams at Will so brightly it’s almost off-putting. “Lovely to meet you, Mr. Graham. I’m sorry, I’d shake, but the baby. Margot, can you take him?”

Margot accepts the bundle with the gravitas of an Olympic athlete taking up a torch. 

“What’s his name?” Will asks, because he knows it’s expected of him. 

“Batao, after my father,” says Judy, her finality that of an argument long won. Then, softening, she rolls her eyes and gives her wife a fond look. “Batao Scipio Verger, and before you say it, yes, we know, we’ve set him up for the worst childhood imaginable.” Margot ducks her head. Will catches her smile. 

“I doubt that.”

“Oh, you’re sweet. Isn’t he sweet? We’ll put your stuff away. I think dinner’s just about ready.”

6.

Over dinner, Will learns Judy and Margot met at a gym where Judy was giving knife-fighting lessons. He learns she’s a black belt in five different schools, and when he expresses interest, she offers to show him a couple things later that evening.

“I’d like that,” he says, picking at a meal that is noticeably vegetarian. 

Margot holds Batao and watches as Judy takes him out to the mats in the house’s impressive workout space. 

“What’re you in to?” Judy asks, “Weapons? Unarmed?”

“Unarmed,” Will replies, more quickly than he’d like. She nods, as if she couldn’t imagine why, as if the question were as simple as his favorite flavor of ice cream. “Right. Familiar with any krav maga?”

The next three hours are spent getting his ass handed to him. Judy touches him minimally, and if he notices that she focuses more on moves designed for opponents in close quarters, or attacks of an intimate nature, he neither offers question nor comment. By the end, they’re both sweating and she throws a towel in his face. “Good work. We need to get you up here more often. Margot’s starting to go soft on me.”

“Hey!” Margot protests, as Judy waltzes over. She takes the baby with a sweaty kiss. 

“S’true sweetheart. I’m gonna grab a shower. Why don’t you two catch up? Later, Will!”

“Bye.” Will shuffles over to an exercise bench and sits heavily. After a quit beat, Margot takes the bench across from him. “She’s great.”

“Yeah.”

The silence stretches for minutes. Will shakes it from his shoulders with a huff. “Christ. Look at us. Serial killer support club.”

Margot tilts her head. Her lips pucker. Will feels her staring at his scar. 

“He does like his extreme solutions, doesn’t he?” 

“If you want to call attempted murder a solution.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Graham. Doctor Lecter doesn’t want you dead.” She pulls a flask from her moss-green hoodie and tosses it to him. He catches it without missing a beat, unscrews the cap and sniffs. “That’s a 15 year old Ben Nevis. Handle with care.”

“Thanks.” 

She eyes him, making a decision. “…I know you wouldn’t think of it to look at me, Graham, but I used to be a small girl. Tall, but…” Margot shrugs with a brand of stiff resignation Will is most familiar seeing in himself. “Weak. Doctor Lecter was the first person to suggest steroids.”

“It went too far, of course. Fucked me up. The whole thing with Mason,” Her expression twists, somewhere between a gag and a snarl. “But saved me, too. Being big, I mean. In the early years. And then later when Doctor Lecter escaped, after that second thing with my brother... We’ve got Batao, because of him.”

Will snorts and takes another sip of the whisky. It really is nice. “Well, I’m glad you had a positive experience, but in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not exactly his public service project.” He bites out the words, enunciations like breaking glass. 

“Has he forced you—”

“No.”

Margot frowns. She looks down at her hands, shapely and callused in her lap. “Obviously, I don’t know him as well as you. I don’t know if I can be helpful or not. Mason did… well. Doctor Lecter and I talked extensively about consent. And blame. I don’t think he’ll come after you again.” She hesitates. Will watches a muscle twitch beneath her collarbone, “Unless you ask him to.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“Didn’t say it was.” She stares at him hard and Will is reminded of Sunday school and avenging angels. “But I’ll tell you what. If I’ve learned anything from all this- this _bullshit_ ,” and he sees rage, deep and dark, through the heart of her, “It’s that until you do what you need to do, for you, nothing in this world will mean a goddamn thing.”

7.

Will spends three days with the Vergers, which is just about as long as he can tolerate anybody. When he leaves, Judy insists he visit again soon, and Batao tugs his thumb mournfully. Margot walks him to his rental car. 

She tosses his suitcase in the back, and meets him at the driver’s door. 

“I’ve got some of his stuff,” she offers. “Books, drawings, that kind of thing. If you were ever interested. Sold most of it in the auction, but keeps turning up. Mason, you know.”

“Uh, thanks, but no thanks,” Will does his best to smile. He knows she means well, but the last thing he needs is a truckload of cannibal memorabilia. 

“Got the mask,” she offers, and for a moment, that gets him. His stomach does a sick lurch, remembering prison, remembering his own facial restraint, and later, Lecter’s matching one. The taste of Lecter’s blood, right before they muzzled him. Will wants to vomit, but shakes his head instead. He gets in the car and closes the door. His body recalls the press of Lecter's against him. The feel of his arms before he slipped in the knife. 

He drives to the airport half-hard. 

8\. 

Nearly ten months after the release of Mason’s video, the Chokoloski corner store starts carrying Shea butter hand cream and Will Graham gets almost, but not quite, black out drunk. 

He feeds the dogs, locks himself in his room, and starts on a bottle of thirteen dollar whisky. It’s foul, and he approaches it like a job. By the time he’s halfway done, the room is hot and spinning. 

He opens the hand cream, which cost nearly twice as much as the alcohol, and feels nothing short of criminal. 

For the first time, intentionally, he pictures Hannibal Lecter. 

Just his face initially, letting himself feel all the things he locks away on a day-to-day basis; the terror, the hate, the attraction, still tied to a shame that creeps up his throat like bile. 

Will can hear himself groaning and allows himself the memory of their last meeting; of Hannibal’s fingers up the curve of his thigh. He wallows in nuances of fear, wondering what could’ve been done to him and what might be done to him still. It’s like his world has been comprised of monochromes, the color and depth sucked away into this one thought whose density could swallow suns. 

Will’s panting, unprepared for the want that rides him. He’s stripped to his boxers, aching to be rid of even those, and in his mind’s eye sees Hannibal above him, in full coat, suit, and kidskin gloves. He would tilt Will’s head back. He would nudge a finger between Will’s lips. He would probe the inside of Will’s mouth, stroke his tongue, and call him a _remarkable_ boy. 

Will slips a finger into his mouth and sucks. He closes his teeth around the knuckle.

Somewhere inside himself, Will Graham is raging. He must set rules, he tells himself. He must set rules, or else Lecter will see this in him. He will take his mind beneath those clever hands until Will is no longer a man at all, but a gagging, mewling doll remade to fit his whims. 

_You cannot let him fuck you,_ he decides and is shocked by the revelation; nauseated by what it implies. He dips fingertips into the hand cream and traces them, trembling, down his stomach. _You cannot let him control you, or get in your head, or offer advice._

Will jerks his cock, and moans into his bitten lip. Above him, the phantom Hannibal removes a glove with his teeth. Will pictures Hannibal crawling over him, pinning him to the mattress. He feels a brush of bangs as he whispers _‘can’t I?’_ and slides down Will’s body. He spreads Will’s legs with an ease that appears negligible. He tuts softly. “You ignore your body too often Will. What can we do about that?” 

_Believe nothing he says. Don’t let him hurt anybody. Get him to the F.B.I., as soon as you can._

Will’s fingers creep behind his testicles, and the panic he feels as they brush his hole is as rough and real as anything. His breath catches in his throat. 

He needs more time, he isn’t ready – and because he knows Hannibal, knows him well – he slips the finger inside himself without warning. Will chokes, gasping while he presses into himself, spitting curses and broken pleas, as at the foot of the bed, his imaginary Lecter adds finger after implacable finger, and muses quietly, “I wonder if you could come, from just this?”

Will learns, he can. 

9.

Will buys ad space on TattleCrime.com. It’s run by a man named Neville Miskiw now, and he sells Will a month long slot at the bottom of the page for slightly less than $700 dollars. It is a simple ad, black font on a white background. It reads as follows:

_"We’ve had our differences. I’d like them resolved. Come home at convenience._

_—Venus de Milo.”_

10.

It has been two years since the release of Mason’s video, and Will Graham descends his porch with a gun.

Sunset paints fire down the black chrome of a supercharged Jaguar. The driver’s door stands open. Sausage sprinkles the ground. The rescue mutts who are the house’s first line of defense fight over scraps, then quiet at his approach.

Will’s pulse is a beating tumor at the base of his neck. His Kimber .45 finds a clear line of sight. The car is empty.

Phantom pain twists the nub of his right earlobe. Somewhere nearby, flesh that is no longer his waits; digested and remade. Adrenaline floods him like a shot. Every hair on his spine lifts and he knows in a fashion he can’t explain: Lecter is inside his home. 

He glances over his shoulder to where empty upper windows gape, like the black sockets of a Halloween skull. His pockets burn, empty of his cellphone, left charging on the bedroom dresser. All four tires on his Mustang have been slashed. The scars on his face pull between smile and snarl. _Just like old times. No backup._

Will squares his shoulders and trains his gun on the screen door. He does his best to ignore the prickle of excitement waking in his belly, or how it stretches, slippery, into a languid heat beneath his belt. 

He takes a step towards the house. 

11.

Inside is dark. Will is struck by an impression of wrongness, as if during his short absence someone had crept in and replaced every object with a double just a little bit _off._ The sound of rushing blood clogs his ears and Will imagines he hears an echo. His heart synchs, _ba-bump, ba-bump,_ with another’s. 

Will’s gun noses up the stairs. There’s dust on the landing, undisturbed. He turns the corner into a short hall, kitchen and bath to the left and right, bedroom ahead. A light shines beneath the door. Will feels his lips quirk in distaste. Obvious. _Crass._

He’s got a hand on the knob when he recognizes the thought as foreign. A familiar flavor, and suddenly—

There is no sound to betray the doctor. Will steps aside from a blow he does not feel coming. Instead of closing around his throat, Lecter’s fingers rake the base of his neck. Will takes his attacker’s hand. Neatly, he breaks Lecter’s wrist. 

Once, in a moment of unintentional cruelty, Jack had shown him footage of Lecter’s murder of a B.H.C.I night nurse. Grainy footage documented her indifference to the doctor’s requests for water. When her back was turned, his jaw widened, unhinging like a cobra. He’d struck as quickly, sweeping her towards him with a free leg, gripping her body between iron thighs as his teeth tore chunks from her. For two years, Will has trained to meet that creature. 

Instead, they fight as men. 

Lecter moves with a grace achievable only through a lifetime of practice. His mouth stays shut. His wrist and the heaviness in his left leg hobble him. Will’s blows are faster. Harder. 

Will pins him against the wall. He can feel the muscles in Lecter’s back clench. They are flush together, hip to hip. Lecter smells of sandalwood and musk. “My dear Will—”

Will’s fingers thread through hair the color of aged parchment. He grips tight, slamming Lecter’s head against hardwood. Once. Twice. Thrice, for good measure. Lecter goes limp, and Will lets him drop to the floor. He checks the necessary signs. He goes to work. An uncomfortable giddiness sinks fangs into him. He has just knocked the F.B.I.’s most wanted serial killer unconscious. He would like to do it again. 

12.

Lecter is incapacitated and bound in a free bedroom on the upper level when Will discovers his cellphone at the bottom of the toilet bowl. The water is clear but the electronics are dead. He checks his computer, and finds it un-disturbed. The modem for his Internet, however, has been smashed to pieces. 

Will feels a migraine creeping up behind his eyes and goes to the kitchen. He pours himself a stale coffee from the pot he’d made that morning, grimacing at the taste; sharp, chalky, and acidic. He forces himself to finish. He collects his thoughts. 

He had not expected to win. Success fills him with a sense of strange unreality. He has just put his greatest demon on the floor and emerged unscathed. Anything seems possible.

He goes looking for the keys to the Jaguar. 

13.  


Will is in the upstairs bedroom, with his fingers in the pocket of Lecter’s coat, when he feels the world shift. The pressure of eyes on the corner of his jaw make his teeth clench. 

“I’m looking for your keys.”

“Of course. They’re in the breast pocket.”

Will keeps his pat down as clinical as possible. He finds nothing in the jacket’s high, decorative slit and the corner of Lecter’s mouth twitches. “Inner, I’m afraid.”

Will’s hand rests in the center of Lecter’s chest. He knows the difference between reality and fantasy, has trained that line hard into himself, but bound at wrists and ankles to the bedposts, context makes Lecter difficult to process. Eyes half-lidded and perpetually amused. 

Will makes himself reach inside Lecter’s coat, and forces his fingers to close over the key they discover there. Though a thin dress shirt, his knuckles press skin. Will is hot, sensation ramping, until the air feels thick and sticky. He’s not sure how long he’s stood there. He’s having a hard time removing his gaze from Lecter’s lips. 

Realization hits with the tearing force of a bullet. He gags and steps backwards. “You drugged me.”

“Nothing you did not administer yourself. I’m sorry for the appalling flavor, but given your choice in coffee, I doubted it would trouble you.”  


Will grinds his teeth. He feels like he could bite through bone. The key sits perfectly against his palm. He catches his thumb rubbing circles over it. “What?”

“Methylenedioxymethamphetamine. You may know it as ecstasy, though I would argue a misnomer. It—”

The words tune out, a gentle murmur into space. Hannibal Lecter is laid out on the bed. Will put him there. Will could touch him. He could peel back every part of him. He’s shaking. He’s doesn’t want to. He’s unsure.

Lecter’s voice feels smooth as scales in his ear. He doesn’t parse it. “Sorry?”

“Calm yourself, Will. Drugs cannot make you do anything you would not already.”

“Mason Verger might disagree.” His mouth is terribly dry.

“Perhaps. But Mason was always self-destructive. Even to the end.”

Will is pleasantly surprised to feel anger rise on the back of his tongue. Lecter’s hair is matted with blood where he hit the wall. Will threads his fingers through it, pulling until the cuffs strain and their eyes meet. “You don’t get to win.” 

“Am I winning now, Will?” Lecter shifts, tugging his tethers so Will can see just how little freedom he has. “You’ve gotten quite strong. Did it feel good, to bash my head in?” Somehow, both of Will’s hands have made it into Lecter’s hair. They’re migrating to his throat. “Tell me, how does power feel?”

“Like I’d like to fuck you,” Will says, from a million miles away, like he’s just realized it. He has just realized it. It’s a beautiful picture. He imagines it would feel like being God. Divinity, with his foot on the neck of the devil. 

Hannibal’s eyes sparkle. “You may have to unchain me first.”

“I don’t think so.” There are old boxes and dusty tool kits in the corner. He searches through them and returns with a rigging knife. Hannibal frowns.

“Will—”

“Doctor Lecter,” Will straddles Hannibal’s waist. “I am extraordinarily high.” He sets the blade to the corner of the Armani jacket. “So either you’re going to _deal_ ,” dull metal struggles to part the seam. “Or eat me later.” Will grips fabric and rips, exposing dress shirt as the coat falls in two at the cuff.

“You’ve set me up for a particularly tawdry pun.” The rigging knife makes short work of the other sleeve, and the layers underneath. Thoughts taste like candy. Will sees a boy on the edge of a dock and he laughs into Hannibal’s skin. He wants to taste, but he mustn’t, he knows. He speaks instead. 

“Do you know what the definition of trust is?” 

“Not Webster’s, I assume?”

His fingers card through the soft, silver down on Hannibal’s chest. Here is hair, flesh, muscle and blood. Here is life that ends life. Here is sadism too, and if he wants, Will can reach out and use it. 

The thought is odd. Will rolls it around in his mouth. He crunches on it. He breaks it in two. It isn’t his. It doesn’t feel like Lecter’s. He squints at the man beneath him. 

He becomes aware for the first time of his empathy as a great and swirling cloud. It hangs in the air around him, ready to brush back time or play it forward. Will imagines its points as needles, which if he chooses, may suture or cut to bone. It prickles along his skin. 

“Where are you?” Will asks. He takes Lecter’s head between his hands. His thumbs apply pressure to the hollows beneath the eyes.

“I don’t believe I’ve gone anywhere. You were saying about trust?”

“No.” The surface of Hannibal’s gaze provides enough depth to be believable, but Will is suddenly sure of a trick. Like a drawer with a false bottom. He reaches out,

_Will sees himself as Lecter does, wild-eyed and beautiful. He is aware of an attraction to himself, tinged with curiosity. He has no fear of emerging worse from the situation. His control is iron, holding back dams both dark and deep. Like the cuffs that secure him to the bed, he finds the shackles elegant, and wears them or not as suits his mood. For now, it pleases him to keep himself in check._

“You must be starved for eye contact, dear Will. For someone so opposed in sobriety, you cling to it now like a drowning man.”

“Show me your killer, Hannibal.”

Lecter smiles, and it strikes Will as coy, almost flirtation. Later, he knows he’ll be horrified. “You have already seen him.”

“His shape, maybe. How he does what he does. I’ve watched his shadow over crime scenes, and CTV footage. I think I might have caught a glimpse of him once when you stabbed me. Accidents. We’ve known each other for a while. I think you can show me.”

“I’m not a schizophrenic.”

“I wasn’t saying—”

A tick at the corner of Lecter’s jaw is all the warning he gets. Will’s arm comes down in a bar across Lecter’s throat. The incisors miss his face by millimeters.

Fear speeds his heart. Hannibal wears a bored expression, though his pupils are blown. Will is hard, erection pressing into the bare flesh of Hannibal’s stomach. He leans over the doctor, panting. Sharing silence and air. 

“Are you acquainted with _Ikebana_ , Will?” He isn’t. They both know it. “The Japanese art of flower arrangement. Most prized for the use of negative space. Control allows for the fullest appreciation of moments without.”

Will puts his weight into the arm across Lecter’s neck. With his free hand, he forces Hannibal’s head into the pillow. “Does it? Want to lose control for me, _Doctor_? Come on.” His hips roll, slow and languid, in time with his words. “You must’ve wondered what I’d taste like. If I mattered just a little bit less. Cut me open, break my ribs, set your teeth into my heart –”

Then Will sees it, the monster, bubbling up to the surface, not in the eyes at all but in the widening maw, a staring, sentient _black_ at the back of the throat. It takes all his strength to hold Hannibal, though it is with awe that he realizes the creature is present only in Lecter’s skull. It has been kept from his body, which, beneath Will, is relaxed; heart rate, only slightly elevated. 

Will bares his teeth and leans in as close as he dares above the gnashing darkness. He whispers, “You are the most wondrous and terrible thing I have seen in my life,” and with the slow, upward twist of his forearm, he chokes the abyss shut. 

Lecter returns to his eyes, breathing hard. There is something new there, something Will can’t quite identify. Somewhere far away a future, sober Will has begun screaming. 

His grip in Lecter’s hair turns harsh, and he shoves his face hard into profile. His lips find the doctor’s ear. They close over the lobe. 

Violence drains as quickly as it came. The desire it’s planted does not. Will finds himself shaking. In as even a tone as he can muster, he asks, “Tell me, because I’m having difficulty,” his voice cracks. “Do I want to bite your ear off because I want to, or because you want me to?”

“I doubt you’d trust my assessment.”

The lump of flesh is soft, tender, and easily detachable in his mouth. Will is caught in a feedback loop of sensation. His own desire mixed with Lecter’s, unchained and messy, splattering them like a Pollack painting. He might be having a panic attack.

_Lecter doesn’t want him to bite. Lecter does. Why? For symmetry. A gift Will can’t walk away from?_ He shakes his head. _Something else._

Will takes the pendulum of his empathy and shapes it into a scalpel. He cuts his way beneath Lecter’s skin, biting down slowly, slowly. He tastes the first tang of blood. He remembers Wendigos and contagious cannibalism. Something clicks. 

“You weren’t the first,” he guesses. “There was another cannibal. Cannibals,” he corrects himself, “They took someone you couldn’t save. They were,” he laughs at how obvious it is, in retrospect, “Rude.”

Hannibal is quiet. Will has him as bound as it is possible to keep a man and still feels an animal surge of danger, like a shadow passing far overhead. When it dissipates, he breathes again. 

“In another time, they would’ve burned you as a witch.”

Context unfolds like a map inside Will. Hannibal would’ve been young. Powerless. All the guilt he would ever be capable of feeling hung up on whoever it was the others had eaten. His first victims and justification for the rest. In becoming like them, Will wonders if a part of Hannibal doesn’t feel he deserves the same treatment. The devourer, devoured. 

Will draws the knowledge close to himself. It will be useful, later. 

Right now, his body is reminding him of its wants. With an embarrassed start, he becomes aware of the fact that he’s been rubbing himself against Hannibal’s chest. Will watches blood dry in teeth marks on the doctor’s earlobe. With an effort, he tears his gaze away. He evaluates the situation.

Hannibal was right. He cannot fuck him without removing the cuffs around his ankles. His own promises prevent the reverse. 

“Unless you have an objection,” Will decides aloud, “I’m going to blow you. Then, I’m going to get sober, drive into town, and call Jack Crawford.”

“I believe Jack is retired.”

Will ignores him. He’s sliding down Hannibal’s body and unzipping his fly. The fabric is wonderful. It is loose and tight. Will rubs his face against it, humming as his cheek travels over Hannibal’s erection, gasping at the scratch of a zipper against his chin. He loses himself in it, nuzzling and sighing until a spot of growing dampness reminds him of his purposes. He licks it, once, and tastes salt. Far above him, he hears the slightest of indrawn breaths. 

The rigging knife lies forgotten up in the blankets. Will grabs it. Cotton and fine silk fray. The Will that is still a grubby little boy in the boatyards of Biloxi takes satisfaction in the dirtying of nice things. 

Freed, Hannibal’s cock is similar to his. It is different. Will cannot imagine putting his mouth on it. He does. It tastes like power. It makes him desperate. Will moans, choking, and it vibrates down the cock in his throat, back through both of them until he’s Hannibal as well; distant pain in his right wrist counterpoint to the wet, gagging need of Will Graham. 

Will looks at himself through Hannibal’s eyes. He feels Hannibal’s faint surprise that something as ragged and wanton as _this_ ever convinced him it was only passingly sexual; it was _straight_. He feels satisfaction; hunger, control, and pride so savage, it drips bloody down the back of his throat. Will’s hand sprawls up onto Hannibal’s chest, feeling the beat and the pump of him. His eyes close. 

Will shakes, lost in the sensation of both of them. He groans as a man in control. He moans like a slut. He pumps into his own hand. When fingers twist in his hair, he comes. He knows something is wrong, but nothing about the situation is right, and if he thinks too hard, he might break and never come back together again. 

The rush of cum in his mouth feels like cannibalism. 

Drug and orgasm wash him in a wave of _good_ , better than anything he can remember. He allows himself a brief, mortifying kiss to Hannibal’s hipbone. Fingernails scrape across his scalp. His eyelids are heavy. Old information bubbles up into his thoughts. He laughs.

“Ecstasy’s a therapy drug,” he accuses, words slurring, feeling lovely and actually _high_ for the first time. “S’for couple’s counseling.”

Hannibal smiles down at him. He’s pleased Will’s made the connection. “Are we not a couple?”

Will blows a raspberry into Hannibal’s inner thigh. If anything tonight kills him, it will probably be that. The hand in his hair stills. Will is already asleep.

14.

In the morning, Will wakes to an empty bed. He tastes blood, and under it, a strange bitterness. When he identifies it as semen, he rolls over and vomits onto the floor. The world spins. Colors are less bright. For a white-hot second, hopelessness slips long fingers around his heart. He clamps it down ruthlessly, stilling the tremors that have started in his arms. He takes inventory of his body instead; cum on his shirt and flaking up his stomach. Pants, halfway down his legs. Boxers, splattered. He squeezes his eyes shut.

_My name is Will Graham. I was recently administered an undetermined amount of MDMA without my consent. My serotonin levels will be compromised. For the next few days, I cannot trust myself._

Will tries to chuckle at that thought, but the sound comes out dead. If he looks at the room, really looks, he can replay the previous evening like a film; like a crime scene. He’s not sure he’ll ever be able to trust himself again. 

His attention catches on the rigging knife, placed neatly atop the dresser. He stares at it for a long time. The bedroom door is open. A breeze blows through the house. From downstairs, he catches the faintest scent of frying bacon. 


End file.
